zebrastripes

so yeah......

Skraylor

which is better, a red grape or a white one?

mikesown

In short:

SEAS if you're interested in math and science with a liberal arts "twist"

CC if you're interested solely in liberal arts

seniors2008

Do you want to live in New York City or Ithaca?

halbhalb

mikesown:
congratulations on not answering the question.

From what I have read, Columbia SEAS is more of a liberal arts approach to engineering. You still get in hardcore science/math, but there is the SEAS core to balance it out. Cornell SEAS is ranked higher and focuses more exclusively on science/math (although I am sure there is still distribution requirements in liberal arts). The schools in general are so different that you should decide based on whether you want a large school in Ithaca or a small school in NY.

confidentialcoll

If you're sure about engineering i'd say cornell for everything except maybe chem E and BME. If you're not sure about engineering as a career, then columbia, it's pretty good for engineering, but it's great if you want to find a job on wall street / go to med or law school. Columbia is also in new york (decide whether or not you want that over ithaca, most prefer nyc), and columbia's engineers are more rounded, with the majority not ultimately working as engineers. Columbia doesn't get worse engineering students though, if you look at SAT scores, acceptance rates, and % of students in the top 10% of their graduating class, columbia seas might actually do better than cornell eng. But the two school are geared differently.

Columbia2002

Yep. That's it.

muerteapablo

Nice try confidentialcoll, Cornell engineering destroys Columbia SEAS in quality of undergraduates as well as true engineering education. We're a baby-step down from MIT. Just look at the rankings. I have 7 friends from NY who chose Cornell over Columbia because they know it's a much better program. There's even an engineer I know who got into Brown and decided to come here.
This is the only engineering school that still manages to beat MIT at tech competitions.

confidentialcoll

"Cornell engineering destroys Columbia SEAS in quality of undergraduates as well as true engineering education"

as i said in terms of offering students a pure engineering education cornell is better in almost all disciplines, but in terms of quality of undergrads sadly it isn't the case, look at SAT scores, top % of HS class, acceptance rate.

"I have 7 friends from NY who chose Cornell over Columbia because they know it's a much better program"

yea no s*it sherlock, if you're at cornell that's all you can guage, not the whole other side of the story, if they had spent their whole lives in the city there's a good chance they might have wanted to leave, i've met more than 7 at columbia who've chosen columbia seas over cornell, wanting the sort of education and environment columbia offered for its engineers. so it's a meaningless point of discussion. You have to look at numbers not your or my shallow set of experiences.

"There's even an engineer I know who got into Brown and decided to come here."

and that would say what?

"This is the only engineering school that still manages to beat MIT at tech competitions."

again cornell is a better school if you're sure you want to do engineering as a career. And most tech competitions play to cornell's strengths, they usually revolve around mech E, comp sci and EE.

Denzera

I went to SEAS because, while I was good at science and math, I greatly enjoyed many other disciplines. In my view, Columbia is a more well-rounded education in general. I could get my A's in science/math classes while still taking a bunch of really interesting liberal-arts classes in history, polisci, philosophy, sociology, CS, etc.

An engineering degree is a good preparation for many things besides just engineering. The majority of Cornell SEAS students go into actual engineering jobs. The majority of Columbia SEAS students do not.

muerteapablo

Confidentialcoll, you're mad silly.

"look at SAT scores, top % of HS class."

Impossible to do either of these things, as Cornell does not list SAT scores by college. You can only look at the average for all schools at Cornell.
"Cornell University also does not have average SAT scores available by college." - Dear Uncle Ezra - Questions for Thursday, February 28, 2008 - Cornell University

So, nice try again. Still, I'm not upset by your foolishness, so you shouldn't be at what you perceive as mine.

Also, Cornell engineering acceptance rate might be quite high, this is true, but the group of applicants is extremely self-selective.
Case in point - I have a high school friend who was rejected by Cornell but accepted to MIT. True story.
Clearly, acceptance rates in a vacuum tell you very little of the story.

lvilleslacker

i just find it amusing you pull this self-selective applicants defense when you're defending your own engineering school's acceptance rate, yet try to attack columbia seas for the very same thing. perhaps some consistency is in order?

Mentor

From his responses in this thread and from others, it appears as though meurteapablo has some sort of unhealthy obsession with bashing Columbia.

Also, he makes no sense.

Predator

Hahha muerteapablo

"Case in point - I have a high school friend who was rejected by Cornell but accepted to MIT. True story."

If you already didn't know, various college acceptances don't mean anything. Someone got rejected from Harvard for economics but accepted by MIT? So that means Harvard's econ program is better than Yale's? Your logic makes no sense.

confidentialcoll

muerteapablo, though i begin to feel you will call me foolish regardless of what i say, i will try again:

"Also, Cornell engineering acceptance rate might be quite high, this is true, but the group of applicants is extremely self-selective"

this is eqaully if not more applicable to columbia seas, columbia college's acceptance rate is 9% and the seas acceptance rate is 18%, showing you that though the school are practically the same in terms of quality of student, and opportunity durning and after college, applicants tend to shy away from engineering, for what ever reason, so self selectivity is not especially true for cornell eng.

"Cornell does not list SAT scores by college. You can only look at the average for all schools at Cornell."

i realize this, but columbia seas's sat scores are comparable to MIT's (where the majority are engineering or pure science), range of around 1390-1540 for seas, and 1380-1560 for MIT.

College Search - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT - SAT®, AP®, CLEP®

this might offend your sensitivities, but numbers unfortunately don't lie, this is why i say that the averge student who comes to columbia seas is very much comparable if not superior to the average cornell engineering student. the rankings don't measure this, the rankings look at engineering only for it's traditional purposes, and here we agree that cornell on balance is a better school for pure engineering, and you should go there if you're sure that's the set of industries you wish to work in.